Rapid progress has been made in the projects of genome sequence analysis for various living organisms including the human genome project, and enormous amounts of information on the nucleotide sequences are being accumulated. At present, the entire nucleotide sequence of the human genome is being determined. From now on, elucidation of gene functions in vivo seems likely to promote dramatic developments of gene-related technologies in a wide range of fields including diagnosis of various diseases, pharmaceutical development, breeding of agricultural products, and the like. The foundation for the progress in these new fields is formed by information about gene expression and gene function in addition to information on nucleotide sequences. As a technology to perform the analysis of gene function and gene expression in a large scale and to develop it to genetic testing, DNA chip or DNA microarray (hereinafter, collectively called DNA microarray) has been developed by Affymetrix Inc., Nanogen Inc., and so on. The majority of the present DNA microarrays utilizes detection by fluorescence as a basic technique and requires a laser or complex optical system. Therefore, the system becomes large in size and expensive.
Furthermore, DNA microarrays developed currently detect the presence or absence of genes in a sample. On the other hand, there are few DNA microarrays that allow genes in a sample to be quantified.
Hence, in light of the abovementioned circumstances, the object of the present invention is to provide a method of detecting nucleic acid by using DNA microarrays, a nucleic acid detection apparatus, and the DNA microarrays that allow a nucleic acid contained in a sample to be quantified with high accuracy.